


And in his eyes, the cold stars lighting

by lindenwaverly



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, First World War, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of Violence, Vague background genderswapped Steph and Cass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 10:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindenwaverly/pseuds/lindenwaverly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim tries not to pay attention to him when he sees him mending broken fences or digging in the garden. He knows what he’s grown into – all shoulders and glares and growls. His hands are strong and weather-beaten. On the rare occasions he is called into the house, he doesn't touch anything with them. His fingers glide just above surfaces, as if he wouldn't know how to interact with the splendor in the house.<br/>Tim tries, but he ends up watching him a lot anyway.</p><p>A First World War AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	And in his eyes, the cold stars lighting

_1911_

Tim tries not to pay attention to him when he sees him mending broken fences or digging in the garden. He knows what he’s grown into – all shoulders and glares and growls. His hands are strong and weather-beaten. On the rare occasions he is called into the house, he doesn’t touch anything with them. His fingers glide just above surfaces, as if he wouldn’t know how to interact with the splendour in the house.

Tim tries, but he ends up watching him a lot anyway.

He sells flowers on the side of the road on Bank Holidays. They’re carnations, and there’s something indecent in their tight curls, their fluttering reds.

Jason hands him one as he passes on his horse, and Tim feels ridiculous, up so high and so very small. He takes the flower carefully at the tip, trying to avoid Jason’s hand, but the fingers brush his wrist.

_1913_

Jason breaks in the horses and then Tim’s father sells them on. He watches from the window. He’s given up trying to avoid Jason and watches him instead. He laughs as he riding, even when the horses are threatening to tip him off with their bucking. He seems to laugh loudest then, and he never falls.

Sometimes he pauses beneath his window and looks up. Once or twice he tips his hat. On these occasions, Tim pretends to be working.

_1914_

“Or-der!”

This isn’t how it should be, he thinks. He didn’t earn his position, up here on this horse. He never rode well, anyway. The men below him are – they’re just that, _men,_ and Tim’s pushing nineteen and he’s never even held a gun before.

They’re gathered there in the parade ground while he attempts to “put them through their paces.” Sweat is beading under the hard edge of his helmet. They don’t need to be ordered to pay attention – they’re already watching him in a perfect straight line, eyes following him as the horse trots up and down. He’s a terrible rider, he knows that. Knows he sits wrong. He can’t align his body with the animal underneath him, can’t move with it, can’t work with that kind of power.

Jason is there in the line-up, an Tim knows he could make an example of him – pick on his posture, his uniform, the way occasionally he turns and spits on the ground. He can’t quite bring himself to do it, because while he may be petty and demanding respect he is equally determined to be fair.

He unconsciously reaches out to brush at his hair and finds it isn’t there anymore, cut newly short for the army. His mouth is dry. He needs to say something – something inspiring, something reassuring, something that will make these men stop staring at him like that – but there is nothing he can say.

In the distance, bugles sound, and the horse suddenly rears. For a second he is thrown back and forth as it bucks around, and his stomach lurches as every muscle in his body tenses for the impact of the ground and hooves on his bones.

Then Jason is there, running his hands along the horses flank, whispering soothing words to it. It melts in his hand, nuzzling his neck.

“Perhaps I better not ride,” says Tim.

The men laugh, and he laughs too and hopes something has been broken.

\--

He finds Jason later in the stables when he goes in to put away his stirrups.

“You spook them, you know.”

“I’m sorry?” It’s the first time he remembers Jason addressing something directly to him just conversationally, not in response to an order or an enquiry.

“The horses. They can sense when you’re nervous. You need to relax.”

“I think they just know that I ride terribly.”

Jason laughs – it’s not the loud laugh that Tim expected just a huff of breath between his teeth.

\--

Jason is seasick. All the men are seasick apart from Tim – he’s never had a problem with unsteady ground – but Jason is a special case. He groans and screams and vomits, and in his more paranoid moments Tim worries that it’s blood and somehow the sea has done something deadly to him.

He orders that Jason is given his officers cabin, insists he will be fine sleeping in the arm chair, and tries to spoon feed him something that he’ll hold down. In his feverish state, Tim isn’t sure that he knows who’s there at all, only hopes that he knows he’s safe.

It’s nearing midnight when Jason rasps.

“Officer Drake.”

“Yes, Private?”

“Will you, uh, will you read something to me? Just to take my mind off.”

He doesn’t know what to read him, so he strokes his damp hair and reads mundane details from his latest letter from mother. Jas.n sleeps

_1915_

“ _Dear Mrs Brown, I’m afraid that I’m writing to you to inform you of the sad death of your son, Stephen Brown. His death was a great and terrible loss to the company and to us all. I understand that your grief must be overwhelming, but I hope that – “_

A shell sounds in the distance, and even though he knows it’s far too far away to cause harm the pen shakes in his hand and goes skittering across the page, leaving explosions of ink like scars on the page. He throws it down in frustration. They have been cooped up for days, watching people die and trying to pick the lice off their bodies.

He will lie and tell Mrs Brown that her son died gloriously. He didn’t. There is no such thing. But Brown’s death was especially miserable. His leg was cut on a ladder, and he slowly died from blood poisoning, begging for water that was always too gritty to calm his thirst.

“Trouble, officer?”

Jason is leaning on the doorway of his bunker. There’s a smear of dirt on his forehead, and his stubble is growing just long enough for it to cast a dark shadow across his face. He looks – he looks tired, Tim realises with shock, because he’s never seen Jason look tired before.

“Nothing. It’s – “ Another shell blast, this one closer, and they both start in shock.

Jason moves closer and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. It’s tentative. Privates do not touch officers, not in this friendly way. He tries not to turn his head, to look at those hands that can calm a horse with one touch.

“You write well. You’ll say the right thing.”

-

He sees the look on Connor’s face and it takes him a second to understand, to look down and see the mine under his foot, and he stares at it because it’s less terrible than looking at his bloodless expression.

Then his foot slips.

He knows his mouth makes the right shapes to call for stretchers and he knows his throat hurts as if he was shouting but he doesn’t know if he actually did because he’s running towards Connor’s bleeding body, and it’s just ok if he looks above the waist where he’s still whole. His mouth is moving like he’s screaming and in the corner of Tim’s vision he can see that the area surrounding him is red and too raw.

They get him onto the stretcher, trying to avoid the places where his legs and his right arm just _aren’t_ anymore. He’s hurt, he’s hurt and he’s screaming and there isn’t anything Tim can _do_ but stand there and issue more orders.

Then Jason’s there, running a hand through Connor’s hair, patting his flank and whispering like he does to the horses, and he _quiets._ He doesn’t stop screaming but he stops thrashing and just stares up at Tim with wide, accusing eyes.

-

Connor dies from blood loss sometime after midnight.

-

“If we weren’t at war right now,” says Jason, “then right at the moment I’d be wringing a goose’s neck and plucking it, all ready for tomorrow.”

“Charming,” says Tim, turning the pages of his book.

“The goose that you would then be eating, and Merry bloody Christmas your Lordship.” He scratches at his stubble. “I need to shave. This is actually getting annoying now.”

“Why don’t you?”

“My razor’s blunt.”

“I have spares.” The words slip out, but Jason laughs and looks delighted.

In Tim’s bunker, Jason stands in the corner in front of the tiny mirror, shirtless and shaving, while he pretends to read and memorises the network of muscles on his back and scars that cross across his shoulders.

“Good book?”

“Great.” He hasn’t a fucking clue.

Jason finishes and wipes his face, helps himself to some of Tim’s cologne and puts on his best smile for the mirror.

“You’re watching me.”

“I’m sorry.”

He smiles and saunters towards him, flinging the washcloth over his shoulder and picking his shirt off the back of the chair, and for a second he’s the same cocky stable boy Tim used to watch from the windows, always laughing at the roughest horses.

“You’ve, uh – you’ve missed a bit.”

He lends down and Tim reaches up just next to his ear, keeping his eyes fixed on that spot of foam. He can feel Jason studying his face, feel his breath on his forehead, and it’s sending sparks from his stomach to his lips. He takes the opportunity to trail his fingers across his jawline, the pads of his fingers barely touching his skin, and then Jason take’s his wrist and raises his fingers to his lips.

-

_1916_

_Dear Mrs Allen, I’m afraid I must write to inform you of the sad death of your son, Bart Allen. While I understand your suffering at this time must be great, I hope the fact that Bart’s died protecting his country in battle will help alleviate your pain. He was a good soldier, a good man and a good Englishman, and will be sorely missed._

Jason comes in and kneels in front of him. He doesn’t say anything, just takes Tim’s head in his hands and scans his face.

“You tried.”

“I failed.”

“There was no way not to.”

Bart had sat down in the middle of the battle and just stopped moving. They’d cajoled and pleaded and ordered. Tim had waved his pistol in his face, and when that had failed he’d held it to Bart’s forehead.

He’d just started to cry.

When they’d finally gotten him back to the trenches, he’d lain in bed for two days, without talking to anyone. On the third day, he’d asked Casper Cain to go and fetch him some water. While Casper was out, he’d picked up his service pistol and shot himself in the head.

Tim had falsified papers that said he’d died in battle. Putting his family through much more pain seemed cruel.

Jason lifts his face and touches his lips to Tim’s temple, a chaste brush across his skin.

-

“Another big push.”

“I know, Jason. I know it’s insanity.”

“It’s more than insanity, dammit. It’s murder, it’s genocide, it’s – “

“I know, remember? I know.”

-

They’re moving together, almost falling off the edge of the bunker’s too narrow bed, and there’s Jason’s skin and Jason’s hand’s and Jason’s lips and Jason and Jason.

He thinks it will overwhelm him. He thinks he might die. So he presses his lips to his throat and keeps on breathing his name and just moves.

-

“Jason!”

The sound is torn from his throat, raw and ragged. They’re retreating, gunfire in their heels and clouds of gas moving in on them, falling and clawing at the mud as they try and drag themselves along. Casper is pulling him along but he’s trying to run back, to where Jason is standing in the middle of a cloud of gas. With the gas mask on, Tim can’t see his face and it’s killing him because he needs to see, needs to know, needs him to _run, now,_ and in the centre of the cloud he sees Jason drop his rifle.

-

Jason is classed as Absent Without Leave after two weeks, and given a dishonourable discharge.

Tim laughs and laughs and then he gets his last spare razor and opens his wrists.

_1917_

The nurses here are very kind. They treat Tim like an oddity. They can’t quite believe the scars on his wrists, the _History of Violent Episodes_ in his report.

The doctors are less kind.

“Were you afraid, Mr Drake?”

“Let me ask you, did you think that you would die anyway and decide to do it yourself?”

“Would you describe your relationship with your mother?”

“When was the last time you were, uh, with a woman, Mr Drake?”

“Are you a Christian?”

“Have you considered hypnosis?”

“Who is Jason, Mr Drake?”

“Could you tell us about Private Todd and your relationship with him?”

“Some of the other officers have made some accusations – “

“Who is Jason?”

-

There is no funeral because officially he isn’t dead. He’s _missing,_ and Tim holds onto that like he’s never held onto anything else.

_1918_

He comes home a month after it’s announced that war is over, and he thinks with bleakly that it’s true, that he really was home in time for Christmas.

At night he sneaks out to stand in the stable yard and touches the horses on the noses, stroking them and whispering to them. After a while, they stop shying away.

 

_1919_

_Let us go then, you and I_  
Where the evening is spread out against the sky  
Like a patient etherized upon the table –

The Sicilian skyline is heavy and blue, not at all like Elliot’s smoky city skies, but there is something of an ether sleep in it, in the stillness of its beauty. But it’s not lifeless, not at all. Nothing in Sicily is lifeless. Everywhere the fruit is becoming ready for harvest, so quickly and in such large quantities that Tim half imagines that if he shuts his eyes he could hear the sound of it ripening.

He’s been sent to Italy for his mental health – “a respite” as mother put it, _an exile_ as he did – and he was only meant to spend a week here but it’s stretched into a month. His family were waiting for him in Venice, but he told them to go home without him. He wanted to stay for the harvest.

Normally he likes to stay in the crowded places in the evening, sitting in the corner of a café and conversing in his rough Italian with the waitresses – they all think he’s very funny, this strange little Englishman in his white suit and his empty villa – but tonight he settles his bill, slips the book into his pocket and takes to the streets. He wanders aimlessly, listening to the voices from the balconies around him as the light thickens and dies.

Jason would have loved it here. He’d have plucked the barely-ripe figs from the trees and gorged on them till the juice ran down his wrists, laughing at Tim when he told him to stop eating.  He hopes that if he _is_ alive that he ended up somewhere like this. A place where they have horses, preferably, and in the early mornings he can ride them down between the vines in the fields.

He still clings to these fantasies of where Jason might be, but they’re different now. In the early days he’d lie back and hope that one day he’d hear the window of his dorm or his bedroom open and feel Jason’s hands in his hair, those hands that could calm a horse or a wounded man, raise an axe, rub his back or the tender hollow of his throat.

Those were hard thoughts to have.

He stops at the edge of town, where the streetlights run out and it fades away to blackness. He knows that if he keeps going he’ll move through the orange fields and then up onto the mountain. From there he can see this town, and the next, all the way down to the sea, and he knows that in the early dawn light it would look like one of the darkest things he’d ever seen and that he’d trace the outlines of Jason’s eyes in the pattern of the waves and wait for the sun to rise.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the Wilfred Owen poem "I Saw His Round Mouth's Crimson" (link below) which is one of my favorite war poems. And I'm sorry that I've written another story where historical queers die, but it's the first world war and there's no way you don't make that sad. There will possibly be more to follow because I enjoy starting ambitious projects and then being daunted by them.
> 
> http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-saw-his-round-mouth-s-crimson/


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